Mobile rewards startup Yoyo Holdings raises $1.3 million

Singapore-based Yoyo Holdings, the startup behind online rewards platform Candy, announced today that it has raised about $130 million yen (or $1.3 million) from Gree Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Yoyo plans to use these funds to step up its marketing efforts and solidify back-end infrastructure.

The company was launched back in October of 2012 by Yosuke Fukada (see video below) and Yoshiki Okazaki, both of whom previously worked with Japanese internet company DeNA. Their solution rewards users for performing micro-tasks by giving them prepaid phone credit. The service is currently operating in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, with more than 250,000 users acquired across these regions.

In this space, we’ve already seen Japanese internet company United has roll out a similar service called DreamGiver, primarily targeting smartphone users in the Philippines.

Masaru started his career as a programmer/engineer, and previously co-founded several system integration companies and consulting firms. He’s been traveling around Silicon Valley and Asia exploring the IT industry, and he also curates event updates for the Tokyo edition of Startup Digest.